Monday, May 31, 2010

This weekend I finished up a painting commission for another 15mm Carthaginian DBA army. The figures were Corvus Belli.

There are two elements of 1El. These fellows were tricky, with separate ears (!) to glue on. Blue tack, gel crazy glue and a lot of swearing were necessary! But they are finished and, I think, look pretty good.

There are two elements of 2LH--Numidian horse with animal print shields.

There are two 3Cv elements, including a Cv General with Hannibal in charge.

There are also three elements of 4Sp.

And three elements of 3Wb.

There are four bases of 2Ps. I thought these had nice character.

Finally, there was one element of 4Ax. For whatever reason, I based these as two elements of 2Ps (below). I have since soaked them off their base and will be putting them together on the proper base tonight. Duh.

Up next: I have finished painting five bases of 28mm HoTT skeletons. I think I will mount these as blade as they are formed warriors and have some more ragtag skeletons as hordes. After these, I would like to finish the 28mm Legionnaires I need to complete the Marian army.

Monday, May 24, 2010

One of my summer projects is to finish up 10 scenarios and a small booklet adapting Impetus to the AWI. This has stalled out due to distractions but I had Bruce over Sunday afternoon for a test of the Monmouth Courthouse (June 1778) scenario. The basic background is that Washington directs Lee to attack the rearguard of the British army. Lee goes forward with no plan, the British rearguard turns around and routs him. Washington then has to rally the troops. Oh, and it is hotter than hell that day so troops become exhausted quickly.

I've tried a couple of different approach to this. I've tried gaming Lee's attack but getting a quasi-historical match-up requires the American player to either act like an idiot or have a crippling set-up (fun, fun!). I've tried gaming the rout, where Washington has to go around and rally each unit while it flees and is pursued--that is more interesting but hard to get right. Finally I've tried picking up the game where Washington has established a defensive line of sorts and both sides feed troops into the battle. Coincidentally, this is the approach take in the British Grenadier scenarios book.

We played out the latter scenario with the Americans started deployed and disordered, far across the board. The British arrive and initially are overpowering, but the reinforcements can very much change the play balance--if the Americans can survive long enough. Bruce played the British and adopted a two-pronged approach with the reinforcements supporting his left wing. He quickly drove in my left wing, which spent the whole game retreating until the met with reinforcements and I managed to break his grenadiers with cannon.

Over on my right flank, the British were overwhelming... except a single militia unit managed to hold up his entire thrust (survive right to the end of the game) and dealt death to anyone who came close. A very dramatic action!

Eventually, though, Bruce's reinforcements arrived and started to push back my crescent defence by flanking it and peeling the line back. We had very asymmetrical rolls this game with Bruce winning almost every initiative roll but having a hard hard in combat whereas my boys clearly had their dander up!

Bruce used this to his advantage, out maneuvering me while I held on hoping to inflict enough casualties for the game to end. Below you can see the end game as Bruce suddenly kills off two units and breaks my morale. Overall, a pretty good game that was tense right down to the line. I would probably have been wise to fall back some more but felt obligated to support my brave militia unit.

I realized at the end we had forgotten to use the "hot day" mechanic which suggests to me that it was not a good mechanic. I will try to cook something up that affected cohesion tests--maybe reducing the cohesion test by one or making it impossible to rally off disorders? It looks to me that replayability is high, with various placement options and different strategies for both sides.

Up next: I'm working away on 15mm Carthaginians (assembled, primed and painting is underway). Need to get some more glue to affix the shields though. And I'm puttering on some 28mm skeletons for HoTT--experimenting with washes over a white primer coat to get a washed out look.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Sean from Calgary kindly sent me an autographed picture of Erin Gray (from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century!) and included in the envelope three samples from the Trey Corbies new line of 15mm Irish Warriors Women of Erin. Trey Corbies is based out of Calgary.

These figures allow you to field an all-female version of DBA army II/54 (Early Irish). Overall, there is a lot of detail on the figures, but it is done in a painting-friendly way. All these screaming Irish women reminds me of Christmas Eve at my wife's late aunt's house... .

I knocked these fellows... err... ladies off in on a few minutes to get a sense of how they would paint and was fairly happy with the results. I should have added a trim line to the red dress and cuffs, mind you.

While I have a lovely Early Irish army from Splintered Light, I'm seriously considering buying another one just so I can field a super cool all-female army.

Up next: Not sure. I have a bunch of 15mm Carthaginians to paint. And maybe a few 28mm skeletons to mix things up.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

I managed to finally get this huge lot of Russians off my painting table! It is a combined DBA Early Rus (III/48) and Rus (III/78) all-option army. There are 66 foot and 19 mounted figures on 24 bases. All of the figures are Old Glory (except perhaps one Essex). The entire army is arrayed below except that one base of spear was left behind on the paint table.

The core of this army are 11 bases of 4Sp. All have highly detailed shields typical of Old Glory--etched detail. All the 4Sp bases are included in this photo.

There are also 2 bases of 4Bd, including a foot general (base with horn and guy with axe).

And two bases of 2Ps.

There is one base of 3Ax.

And a 7Hd.

The cavalry include 3 bases of 3Cv in heavy armor (including a Cv General).

There are also two more bases of 3Cv to represent some heavier steppe mounted troops.

And two bases of 2LH, again using steppe-style troops.

Up next: Some 28mm Roman cavalry from Wargames Factory, three 15mm female Irish from Trey Corbies and I understand a 15mm Carthaginian army is on its way as a painting commission.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Chris dropped by last night after a long week for some DBA. He brought both armies: a Museum Miniatures Marian Roman army and a Corvus Belli Ancient British army (both painted by yours truly).

We managed to get two games in around the conversation and I think both were Roman victories.

In game one the British warband came forward than stalled without enough pips to double pulse into contact with supporting chariots. So the warband came on by itself. It managed to punch through the first line of Romans but was quickly isolated, flanked and dispatched.

Game two saw some tough pip rolls for the British. They managed to pull the Roman line apart but with only one or two pips could never quite manage to mount a coordinated attack. ARRRGH!

All good time in any event.

Up next: 15mm Rus are painted and washed so I will work on basing them this weekend. Then some 28mm Roman cavalry require attention.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

While I have spent most of my time working through a 15mm Rus army (so many footmen!), I have also been painting some 28mm plastic Romans to finish off my Marian Roman DBA army. Last night I finished three bases of legionnaires and two of psiloi.

The legion look good (or good enough!) and are starting fill out the ranks. Another three bases to go, though. Maybe I'll do some cavalry as a break. Here they are front-and-back. Boy the plastic assembles so much easier than the metal.

And then I did two bases of psiloi. I had thought to use pilum but decided instead to use some slings from the Celtic set for variety. A plausible weapon for skirmishers of the time and an easy conversion given the plentiful arms and weapons.

And here they are front-and-back.

Here is the army so far--a couple of stands of mounted and a few more legion and this one is in the bag! Then onto the Celts. I may also do a few more fantastical bases so it could double as a HoTT army. What to use for Roman flyers, behemoths or magicians? Maybe the Boudiccia figure from the celtic chariots could be converted.

For those of you who know him, doesn't the standard bearer look just a tiny bit like Bruce F. from Calgary?

Up next: Well, the Rus obviously! Making good progress just being slowed by the number of figures and my desire to mix up the colours enough on the figures. Maybe by the end of the weekend I will have the painting done and can knock off the basing next week. Then a commission for some Carthaginians. With some 28mm Roman cavalry to mix it up some.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

It was club night last night and, despite a weekend full of gaming at MayDay and a late-spring snow (the grass beneath is green and the garden plants are up four inches), there was a hearty turn out.

Elliot and Kevin played Warmachine.

I don't understand it but it is very pretty.

Chen and Justin played some Ambush Alley, with Chen's human partisans popping up (ironically?) out of holes in the ground only to get wasted by the bugs.

Dave put on a game of Disposable Heroes for a lot of guys (four at one point) with the Italians rushing across North Africa to get away from the British.

Or trying to. I believe this scenario ran three times?

Craig kindly indulged me in a game of War of 1812. A weird game, with the British winning on turn 1 (freakish dice). We continued to play and there was a complete reversal on turn 2. Followed by a clear British win on turn 3. Weird.

Up next: Some 28mm Romans are being based and some 15mm Rus are being painted. I am also cleaning out the closet with a bunch of PT boats going to Justin yesterday, a bunch of PT boat books on TMP and some leftover 28s being sent to Saskatoon. Feels good to get stuff moved on!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

We had our sixth annual MayDay gaming convention this weekend. Congratulations to organizer Craig who did a great job (again). I played a bit of Blood Bowl in the morning which was a fun introduction to the game. In the afternoon, I played Bruce's DBHx Franco-Prussian war scenario. I spent most of it bashing myself silly against Don Ray's dastardly French forces. Oh, such casualties!

In the early evening, i ran my Basic Impetus version of Freeman's Farm in 6mm. Here is Scott putting the first few Brits on board. The scenario entails map movement (to mirror the historical development of the battle) combined with a variable-speed clock.

Alas, the clock ran quickly as Terry rolled a 6 on 10 of the 15 turns (AHHHH). This put a lot of pressure on the British who struggled to get on board in time. I'm not sure what to make of this freak occurrence. It was certainly possible within the rules of the game but was very unlikely. Adjusting the clock mechanic would likely unbalance "average" games. Hmmm.

The British came on the east edge of the board, eschewing a more historical deployment. But the time pressure forced their flanking maneuver to show up and enter a kill zone before the Americans has been drawn far enough forward that the flanking maneuver was really on the flank.

In short, the British could not come to grips with the rebels fast enough and the Americans won by not losing. Thanks to everyone who played--seems like the basic mechanics worked well enough. Glad to get the game out again!

I also caught a bit of Bob's 6mm Zama game (which I would have loved to have played in).

Up next: Some 15mm Rus are on the paint pile and some 28mm Romans are also underway.